Herman Koch - Dear Mr. M

“That’s what you get when boys try to cook…,” she said, fishing a wooden spoon out of the garbage.

Stella had already pulled on the rubber gloves. “Oh well, it was a sweet thought,” she said. “What’ll we do, just start anywhere?”

After the boys had polished off the rest of the gin, Ron got his guitar and Michael came down with his saxophone. Herman had been sitting in the easy chair by the stove the whole time, his legs wide, smoking one Gitane after the other.

“I did the cooking,” he said. “Tonight I’m exempt from kitchen duty.”

At the first notes from Michael’s saxophone, Laura caught Stella’s eye and gestured to her to come into the kitchen.

“Did you really like that Unox sausage, or were you just pretending to?” Laura asked. She was standing behind Stella, a little to the left, so that she didn’t have to look her friend straight in the eye; she did her best to make her voice sound normal, but didn’t quite succeed.

“What do you mean, ‘just pretending to’?” Stella had moved all the plates and cutlery from the sink onto the counter and sprayed a stream of green detergent into the tub of hot water.

“You should have seen yourself,” Laura said. “And heard yourself. ‘Oh, that’s delicious !’ I mean, I know how you always look at every can and jar to see how much artificial flavoring has been added. Everyone knows that. No one believed you. Only Herman, maybe.”

“I was just trying to be nice.” Stella started in on the first plate — according to the same method as always, Laura knew: first she scrubbed off the caked-on remains with the scouring pad, then ran the dishwashing brush over the plate, and finally she rinsed off the suds under the cold tap that she left running beside the dishpan the whole time; glasses she held up to the light before putting them in the rack. “He doesn’t help out much, okay. He’s lazy, but he’s also not used to it, you can tell that. If you just ask him to help out, he does it, really. And cooking tonight, that was all his own idea. So then why sit around and whine about a Unox sausage.”

Laura took the first plate from the rack. She raised it to right in front of her eyes, examining it for a spot of endive or mashed potato that Stella might have missed — but found nothing.

“But there’s a big difference between not whining and acting as though you’re being served haute cuisine, I guess. And the look on your face when you said it…It was really too bad you couldn’t see yourself.”

Stella was running the brush slowly round and round the next plate, but now she stopped. She turned halfway and looked at Laura.

“Can I ask you something, Laura?”

It was one of those moments when you cross a certain line unawares, Laura realized only too late. Suddenly you’re on the other side and can’t go back. Laura would think back on this moment often, later, the moment when she, without knowing exactly how it had happened, found herself somewhere she didn’t want to be.

She could feel her face growing hot, and cursed herself. It had all gone too quickly. She knew the question that was coming next, and she knew that she could never lie as long as she was looking straight at Stella.

“Do you like Herman, Laura?”

Straight through the dish towel, Laura pressed her fingers hard against the edge of the plate she was still drying, but when nothing broke off, she dropped it instead.

“Oh, shit!” she said.

The plate didn’t break into dozens of shards on the tile floor, not the way she’d hoped. Instead, it broke neatly into three fairly even pieces, which remained lying at her feet.

“He’s too skinny for me,” she said, bending down to pick up the pieces. “And those rubber boots. I don’t know, but somehow I always find myself hoping that I won’t be there if he ever takes them off.”

She stood up, and now she did look Stella in the eye.

“He’s just not a boy for girls,” she said. “Not obviously, I mean. Not the first one you think of when you think about boys.” She didn’t blush when she said this — because it was the truth. “He’s not my type,” she added. “Maybe he’s yours. As far as I’m concerned, you can have him. Enjoy yourself.”

And then she really did have to turn away. She turned her back completely, then tried to take as long as she could to stuff the broken pieces of plate into the packed garbage pail.

As soon as they had gathered at the bus stop the next afternoon with their bags and duffels, it started raining softly. Only a drizzle at first, but a few minutes later they saw the rain rolling in curtains across the fields from the direction of Retranchement. There was no shelter for them to huddle beneath, they did their best to keep dry under the trees on the deserted village square. Laura closed her eyes and listened to the rain rustle through the leaves. She had gone upstairs early the night before, but barely slept a wink all night. Downstairs in the living room she’d heard Michael on his saxophone and Ron playing his guitar, punctuated occasionally by laughter, and also the sound of someone throwing up into a bucket in the little hallway between the kitchen and living room. At breakfast that morning Lodewijk had been quieter than usual, and after pushing away the plate of bacon and eggs David had made for them, he stood up with a groan and said, almost in a whisper, that he was going out for a breath of fresh air.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Stella asked.

Lodewijk closed his eyes and shook his head — a shake barely perceptible to the naked eye, followed by more groaning, as though the slightest movement caused him pain. “No, just leave me,” he whispered.

The attic was divided into three bedrooms, separated only by thin wooden walls. In other words, you could hear everything: snores, sighs, farts — and the friends always left the doors open till way past midnight in order to go on talking. The girls had a room to themselves; David, Michael, Ron, and Herman slept in the big room in two beds and on two mattresses on the floor. Lodewijk had the smallest room all to himself. It was only big enough for a single bed. Sometimes he would complain loudly that the others were making too much noise.

“Maybe there are people here who would kind of like to sleep!” he shouted — but he didn’t actually close his door.

It was almost light out when the others finally came upstairs. Laura turned to face the wall and heard Stella — or at least she assumed it was Stella — come into the bedroom, then the sound of a zipper: a drawn-out sound, the sound of someone doing their utmost to open a bag as quietly as possible.

Somewhere in the hallway or outside the door there was whispering, but she couldn’t make out what was being said — let alone by whom.

“She’s asleep,” Stella whispered back.

The zipper was closed again, the planks in the wooden floor creaked softly when Stella took the few steps that brought her to the doorway. Now Laura heard a soft squeaking, a sound she hadn’t heard that whole week, but she knew immediately what it was.

They’re closing the door! Except for the soft squeaking, she heard only the pounding of her own heart beneath the blankets. They’re closing the door so I can’t hear what they’re going to do…

With a short, dry click, the door closed.

Laura counted to ten, her heart pounding faster and louder, then rolled over slowly — the bed, too, creaked at the slightest movement.

Gray daylight was coming through the red-and-white checkered curtains of the attic window, touching the floor — and Stella’s bed, where her travel bag lay atop the blankets. Without making a sound, Laura lowered her feet to the floor. A few seconds later she was at the door and pressing her ear against the wood.